


All the hopes that you've been holding on to for so long

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [279]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Transitioning, missing moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23379463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: It took Sam (Blaine's best friend) a little time to find herself. This is a very brief story of how she did it with a little help of Blaine himself.
Series: Leoverse [279]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541





	1. The day before yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> scritta per: COW-T #10 (M6)  
> prompt: Regret what it has not been (and fix it)
> 
> scritta per: Prompt di Scorta  
> prompt: [Questa immagine](https://i.imgur.com/xPvzAB5.png) (+ Missing Moment)

The first time Samuel wears lipstick he's scared shitless, but he's also so attracted to it, so excited at the idea to try it on, that his innate lack of confidence gives way to that sliver of courage he has mastered to get upstairs to his mother's bedroom and finally to the vanity where she keeps her make up.

He knows her make up is here because he has watched her as she put it on so many times, and yet he has never been in the bedroom without her. It's a weird feeling, not entirely good. He can feel that he is doing something wrong even _before_ he does it. His mere presence in the room is forbidden and inappropriate – that is what his father said once when he found him helping his mother painting her nails a beautiful shade of silver – what he is here to do can only be worse.

From his mother's wide collection he chooses the red lipstick because it's the brightest and because it's her favorite. She had let him try it on the back of his hand once. He has always thought his mother had great tastes – maybe not the same he has, but good, elegant – and if he really is going to do this - _is he?_ \- he wants to choose a color that he already knows it's good.

He places himself in front of the mirror and holds the lipstick in his hand like a knife at first, the weapon he's going to change himself with. Then he takes off the cap. The lipstick has been used, but it doesn't matter. It's still new enough that it maintains its shape.

Just looking at his armed hand boosts his courage.

He holds his breath and dives in, like he used to do when he was a little kid and his father let him jump from his shoulders. He puts it on and it feels like power.

It's a shield around his body, making his reflection a little more what it's supposed to be.


	2. Yesterday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scritta per: COW-T #10 (M6)  
> prompt: Regret what it has not been (and fix it)
> 
> scritta per: Prompt di Scorta  
> prompt: Norwegian Reggaeton, Nanowar of Steel feat. Charly Glamour & Gigatron (+Missing Moment)

Music is soothing.

Either it is something he likes, or some silly song from an obscure comedy heavy metal band from Italy, Spotify proposes to him for whatever reason. He has never heard something like that before, it doesn't sound like _anything_ he has ever wanted to hear in his life or he will ever want to hear again, but it doesn't matter.

He lives his life continuously disconnected from the noise outside – from the comments he receives, from the names he's being called, from the irritating duty of having to explain to others what's going on with him when he himself doesn't know. He manufactures himself a world made only of harmonies and notes, of words that describe what he feels instead of judging it.

Whenever he comes out of it, it's to plunge himself in more music.

The _Prince of Persia_ has become his home away from home. Or just his home, since he and his father are at odds most of the time and Samuel doesn't like to live with him more than he likes to go to the office in the morning to do that excuse of a job he has.

It's the only gay club in a 50 miles radius – one of the many perks of living in a godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere, Ohio – and it's the breath of relief people like him take at the end of a week. It's so loud that you can't talk and so crowded that you can't move without touching somebody. The only way you communicate is through what you are and what you are is whatever you want.

Here is where Sam is born.

She's beautiful and fierce, and nothing can stop her whenever she takes over. When she struts into the club with her long blonde curls loose down her back, wearing the most revealing clothes with ease, people stop to stare at her with fascination. She owns the place she occupies in the world, she's in control.

It's been years since he held his first weapon, now he's got a whole armor.


	3. Today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scritta per: COW-T #10 (M6)  
> prompt: Regret what it has not been (and fix it)
> 
> scritta per: Prompt di Scorta  
> prompt: Flower in her hair (+ Missing Moment)

“Love, what's wrong?” Blaine's voice is concerned and sweet as he stands on the door of her bedroom. He came as soon as he asked, run here from wherever he was. He always does.

He waits, patiently, for her sobs to subside enough to let her speak.

“I'm fading,” she whispers. “I'm not here anymore.”

Sometimes Sam wakes up and she is trapped in the body nature gave her.

She knocks on the walls of skin surrounding her, she screams and thrashes, she tries to claw her way out, but no matter what she does, she can't get free. She looks herself in the mirror and all she sees is wrong, all she sees is Samuel.

The inconsistency between her feelings and what her eyes see tears her apart. 

She feels like dropping on the floor – the burden of this body too heavy to hold – and it's only Blaine's arms who keep her up. It's always him who keeps her afloat when her bad thoughts become a sea ready to drawn her. “You're not gone,” he whispers in her ear. “I can see you.”

Blaine combs her long blond hair with his fingers and then he braids it. He grabs the old Hawaiian garland that she threw on the mirror after the last pride and then forgot, and he plucks a flower from it. He fixes the plastic flower in he hair and, finally, he smiles at her reflection. “Here she is,” he says. “I think she's beautiful.”

And as Blaine recognizes her, she can she herself too.


	4. Tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scritta per: COW-T #10 (M6)  
> prompt: Regret what it has not been (and fix it)
> 
> scritta per: Prompt di Scorta  
> prompt: “I told you I’d see you through this. Put things back together again so that we can move forward. I meant it.” (Captain Flint, Black Sails) (+ Missing Moment)

“I'll be the first thing you see when you wake up.”

When Sam opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is a weird duck in a field of poppies. Pretty standard for an hospital decoration, but still the ugliest painting that was ever done in all the history of art.

She laughs and the bottom half of her body just screams bloody murder, instantly reminding her why she's here. “What are you laughing at?” Blaine asks confused. He's sitting on a chair right next to her bed, his unmissable Italian shirt, stark white on his sun-kissed skin.

“I was thinking that you weren't the first thing I saw when I woke up,” she nods towards the picture on the wall, which is also hanging askew. “The duck beat you to it.”

“That's a goose, actually, and it only won a battle. I'm going to win the war,” Blaine smiles. “I'm the second thing you saw and the best by far. I'm a soothing sight after such monstrosity.”

Sam laughs again and then she winces. “Don't make me laugh,” she hits him lightly. “I'm still under painkillers and these stitches are a bitch.”

“How do you feel?”

“Sore,” she says right away, “and I probably look like shit.”

“But...?”

She smiles. “But I'm happy, Blaine. So happy I don't even have the words for it.”

“I told you I’d see you through this, didn't I?”

He really told her he would, and he did.


End file.
